Post by Blu on Mar 17, 2008 1:57:44 GMT -5
Host-GG: Let gratitude fill our hearts with joy, Father God, as we study to give and receive joy every day of our lives. We thank you for this chat room to meet and greet old friends and new. Amen
ron1: stupid keyboard...
maybellel: amen
ron1: maybe its the stupid person using it...
ron1: lol
Cris7: Amen
Host-GG: AN EVER-INCREASING SPIRAL ~~ As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center. ~~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
ron1: amen
Host-GG: “My Russian grandmother was my greatest teacher in gratitude,” a coworker recently told me. “We were very poor and I often would complain about not having this or that. Any time we went anywhere, she would use whatever happened as a lesson in giving thanks. We’d walk down the streets of New York and see a man without legs begging for food, and she would say, ‘ Now you send up a prayer right now to God thanking Him for your legs and for t
Host-GG: She wouldn’t do it to feel superior to the man or to make me feel guilty, but to teach me that around us every day are ways to remind ourselves of the bounty we have, no matter what our circumstances, and the more we give thanks, the more likely it is that the blessings will continue. For years in my adolescence, I rejected her teaching. But lately I’ve begun to notice that the more I give thanks, the better my life goes. When I become ungrateful
Host-GG: A lot of the recent writing on gratitude makes it sound like some kind of insurance policy, as if the reason to feel grateful is to make sure that good things will continue to come our way. That feels spiritually materialistic to me, like praying for a pink Cadillac or a mink stole.
Host-GG: True gratitude is a natural response to the miracle of life as we experience it moment to moment, a sense of abundance from the heart that is independent of our desires for the future.
Host-GG: That said, it does seem to be true that whatever we focus on tends to increase. Have you ever noticed that if you learn a new word you suddenly hear it everywhere? Or your friend introduces you to blue lobelia and you suddenly notice it blooming all over?
Host-GG: Exactly why this happens is something of a mystery, but I believe it’s because everything is around us all the time. We are choosing, mostly unconsciously, to notice certain things and not others because we just cannot pay attention to everything. As we change what we pay attention to, we notice that more.
Host-GG: Scientists have proposed that something more amazing is at work ~~ that reality is open to the mind’s casual influence and is, in the words of David L. Cooperider, ‘often profoundly created through our anticipatory images, values, plans, intentions, beliefs and the like’. This suggests that we actually participate in creating what happens to us by the power of our positive or negative imagery.
Host-GG: In either case, the move we are grateful, the more we will have to be grateful for. Even if nothing more or better happens, our eyes are opened to the gifts that were always there. As Susan Jeffers notes, ‘When we focus on abundance, our life feels abundant, when we focus on lack, our life feels lacking. It is purely a matter of focus.’
Host-GG: In the previous paragraph Coooperider s/b Cooperider and in the last paragraph move, should be more.
Host-GG: START WHERE YOU ARE ~~ If you haven’t got all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want. ~~ Anonymous
Host-GG: Sometimes we are in such a negative state that the only way we can connect to a sense of gratefulness is to count all the bad things that aren’t happening to us: well, the dog didn’t get hit by a car today. I don‘t have Alzheimer’s yet; my kid didn’t pierce her nose today; and earthquake didn’t strike.
ron1: 'yet'
Host-GG: Counting blessings that are blessings by virtue of their not having stuck, the more outrageous the better, is a great mood-elevator. By the time you recite your list to a loved one or friend, you should be feeling a whole lot better.
Host-GG: But there is a serious aspect to this as well. When you really think about it, isn’t it wonderful that the tornado didn’t strike? Isn’t it great that the house didn’t burn down? (It’s a real possibility. Three of my closest friends have had their homes or businesses burn to the ground.) Sometimes we need to look at what hasn’t befallen us to wake ourselves up to the joys of our ordinary life
Host-GG: Often we arrive at this place by hearing about the misfortunes of others, “Oh, thank God it wasn’t my child in that car crash”, “I’m so grateful that it’s not my husband who’s losing his job”, “Think of all those poor people who lost their homes.” Such reactions are human nature, I suppose, and yet it would be wonderful if we didn’t need the sorrows of other people to remind us of the blessings in our own lives.
Host-GG: Rather, if we consciously count our blessings on a daily basis, including those that are blessings by virtue of their not happening, instead of experiencing a sense of grateful relief when we hear about someone else’s misfortune perhaps we will be spurred into the action that comes from an awakened sense of compassion.
Host-GG: Chapter 4 – Part 1 of 3 – THE PRACTICES of GRATITUDE
Host-GG: Beginning to tune into even the minutest feelings of . . . gratitude softens us . . . If we begin to acknowledge these moments and cherish them . . then, no matter how fleeting and tiny this good heart may seem, it will gradually, at its own speed, expand. – Pema Chodron
Host-GG: Now we come to the next stage of our journey, which is where we begin to put our attitudes into action. Here we don’t just feel grateful, but we move to express our feelings of gratefulness in a variety of ways that enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
Host-GG: This is where we truly ripen as souls, for it is easy to pay lip service to the idea of gratitude and not take the final step of embodying it. But when we begin to practice gratitude, we create a powerful resonance between our thoughts and our actions, and our souls shine forth in all their brilliance.
Host-GG: Are there any questions or comments before proceed with the practices of gratitude?
maybellel: not yet GG
Host-GG: For one, I really like the way this lady author expresses her thoughts in words of such beauty and understanding.
ron1: nothing right now
Host-GG: EXERCISE DAILY - Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. – Frank Tyger
Host-GG: Even though I have spent the last twenty-five years as an editor and a writer, I am continually amazed that writing is a muscle that must be exercised. When I or my authors do it every day, it comes relatively easily, just like running a mile does for a marathoner.
Host-GG: When two much time has passed since I last sat down in front of the computer, my brain is creaky like an athlete coming back after an injury. Once, when I had not written for a month, I despaired that I could ever do it again.
Host-GG: The same is true for fostering any attitude. The more you do it, the easier it is to do. In fact, I’m convinced that this is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. A pessimist is someone who has exercised the muscles of negativity and lack till they are strongly habitual, while an optimist is a person who has developed thankfulness and a can-do attitude until these are second nature.
Host-GG: . We all have the choice of which muscles we want to strengthen. With practice, we can become joy-filled participants in the game of life, thankful to do our part and relishing in the sheer pleasure of play.
Host-GG: When I think of someone who really exercises her gratitude muscles, I think of Peris. She’s the kind of person who calls her friends out of the blue to thank them for being in her life. She comes from a large Croatian family, replete with all kinds of screwball uncles and zany aunts, the kind of family many of us would run from.
Host-GG: Listening to her stories, you begin to appreciate your own quirky family members in the same way she does. Recently I called her to ask her about gratitude. She didn’t get back to me right away, and when she finally did, she said my call had reminded her that she hadn’t been feeling very thankful lately and was grateful for the wake-up.
Host-GG: Like Peris, you have to practice or the muscle will wither. Developing the muscle of gratitude is just like exercising any other. At first it will seem weird, awkward, perhaps even hard to do. But if you keep at it every day, soon you won’t even have to think about it.
Host-GG: Whether you keep a gratitude journal or start a practice of thinking about all you are grateful for as you drive to or from work, creating some daily ritual really helps build the muscle. Only you know what will work best for you ~~ a file on your computer, a beautiful blank book, and audiotape in your car.
Host-GG: Whichever format you pick, make a commitment to list ten things every day that you are grateful for. Pretty soon it will be second nature. Here’s the beginning of my list. “I didn’t get in a car accident; my computer worked; my baby is healthy; it stopped raining; I had steak for dinner; my house is warm and dry; my sister called . . .”
Host-GG: CHOOSE GRATEFULNESS ‘IN SPITEOF’ – As you wander on through life, sister/brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole. – Sign in the Mayflower Coffee Shop, Chicago
Host-GG: Best selling author Lyanla Venzant, who penned such inspirational books as Acts of Faith and One Day My Soul Just Opened, has lived the prototypical rages-to-riches story. A former welfare recipient, she was about forty when her life began to turn around. Through it all, she claims, her sense of gratitude kept her going. “I’m grateful for everything,” she says, “from being homeless to sitting in a half-million-dollar house.”
Host-GG: This remarkable woman is pointing to something very important about gratitude ~~ that we can experience it even ‘in spite of’ something else; that our friend is lying in a hospital dying, that millions of people are starving as you red this book, that our own lives have trials and tribulations that might be sorely testing us
Guest1253 has joined RedPathHosted.
Host-GG: We can’t wait until everything is OK ~~ with us or with the rest of the world ~~ to feel thankful, or we will never experience it at all. “The world is too bent for unshadowed joy,” Lewis Smedes points out, and so we must catch and kiss our joy as it flies by, even in the midst of sorrow or suffering.
Host-GG: Greetings gues 1253
Guest1253: tHnk you Hoat
Host-GG: This is not to imply that we deny suffering, but just that we not allow our suffering to blind us to the beauty and joy that surrounds us no matter what else is going on.
maybellel: hi Guest1253
Guest1253: I'll try again--- Thank you Host
Host-GG: It’s a matter of where you choose to put your attention. Try the following experiments: Pick one morning and stop every hour on the hour and notice what went wrong in that time period. The traffic was terrible and you were late to work; the weather was gloomy and cold; your boss complained about the project you’ve worked so hard on.
Host-GG: My keyboard is a bit rusty tonight, too, guest 1253 so we have all had it at one time or another. Welcome to Attitudes of Gratitude.
Host-GG: That afternoon, stop every hour on the hour and notice what went right: An old friend called out of the blue; the sun came out; you did an excellent job on the sales letter.
Host-GG: Did you feel more alive in the morning or in the afternoon?
Host-GG: REVEL in the ORDINARY ~~ Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. ~~ Mary
Host-GG: It’s hard to appreciate the ordinary, except in contrast to something hard or challenging. I am always reminded of the truth of this when I’ve been sick. When I am well, I take my physical being for granted.
Guest1253: Wonder food for thought
Host-GG: I don’t particularly notice how I feel, I’m simply not aware of it. But when I’ve been sick and begin to feel better, I am filled with immense gratitude for how good it feels not to be sick ~~ not to have an aching head, a burning throat, leaden muscles and joints. I feel exactly as I normally do, but now I notice how great that is.
Host-GG: Please comment anytime or ask questions as we go along, if you wish everyone.
Host-GG: Other people experience this sensation from a close call in a car or plane, an almost-bankruptcy, anything that shakes us out of complacency and wakes us to the wonder of our ordinary existence.
Host-GG: The trick, of course, is to learn how to have that awareness without having to be sick, almost lose your house, or get hurt in a car crash. One way to do it is to pick an ordinary task, something you do every day, and decide that just for today, you will do it with awareness
Host-GG: . It can be anything ~~ washing dishes, chopping vegetables, making the bed. Instead of doing it while thinking about something else, such as the dinner that still needs to be made or how mad you are at the driver who cut you off, you actually pay attention to the task itself rather than being on automatic pilot.
Host-GG: Notice the high-pitched whirring of the vacuum cleaner, the hard-yet-soft feel of the ribbed hose in your hand, the sigh of the white dog hairs against the hardwood floor as they are sucked into the vacuum . . . . .
ron1: stupid keyboard...
maybellel: amen
ron1: maybe its the stupid person using it...
ron1: lol
Cris7: Amen
Host-GG: AN EVER-INCREASING SPIRAL ~~ As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center. ~~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
ron1: amen
Host-GG: “My Russian grandmother was my greatest teacher in gratitude,” a coworker recently told me. “We were very poor and I often would complain about not having this or that. Any time we went anywhere, she would use whatever happened as a lesson in giving thanks. We’d walk down the streets of New York and see a man without legs begging for food, and she would say, ‘ Now you send up a prayer right now to God thanking Him for your legs and for t
Host-GG: She wouldn’t do it to feel superior to the man or to make me feel guilty, but to teach me that around us every day are ways to remind ourselves of the bounty we have, no matter what our circumstances, and the more we give thanks, the more likely it is that the blessings will continue. For years in my adolescence, I rejected her teaching. But lately I’ve begun to notice that the more I give thanks, the better my life goes. When I become ungrateful
Host-GG: A lot of the recent writing on gratitude makes it sound like some kind of insurance policy, as if the reason to feel grateful is to make sure that good things will continue to come our way. That feels spiritually materialistic to me, like praying for a pink Cadillac or a mink stole.
Host-GG: True gratitude is a natural response to the miracle of life as we experience it moment to moment, a sense of abundance from the heart that is independent of our desires for the future.
Host-GG: That said, it does seem to be true that whatever we focus on tends to increase. Have you ever noticed that if you learn a new word you suddenly hear it everywhere? Or your friend introduces you to blue lobelia and you suddenly notice it blooming all over?
Host-GG: Exactly why this happens is something of a mystery, but I believe it’s because everything is around us all the time. We are choosing, mostly unconsciously, to notice certain things and not others because we just cannot pay attention to everything. As we change what we pay attention to, we notice that more.
Host-GG: Scientists have proposed that something more amazing is at work ~~ that reality is open to the mind’s casual influence and is, in the words of David L. Cooperider, ‘often profoundly created through our anticipatory images, values, plans, intentions, beliefs and the like’. This suggests that we actually participate in creating what happens to us by the power of our positive or negative imagery.
Host-GG: In either case, the move we are grateful, the more we will have to be grateful for. Even if nothing more or better happens, our eyes are opened to the gifts that were always there. As Susan Jeffers notes, ‘When we focus on abundance, our life feels abundant, when we focus on lack, our life feels lacking. It is purely a matter of focus.’
Host-GG: In the previous paragraph Coooperider s/b Cooperider and in the last paragraph move, should be more.
Host-GG: START WHERE YOU ARE ~~ If you haven’t got all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want. ~~ Anonymous
Host-GG: Sometimes we are in such a negative state that the only way we can connect to a sense of gratefulness is to count all the bad things that aren’t happening to us: well, the dog didn’t get hit by a car today. I don‘t have Alzheimer’s yet; my kid didn’t pierce her nose today; and earthquake didn’t strike.
ron1: 'yet'
Host-GG: Counting blessings that are blessings by virtue of their not having stuck, the more outrageous the better, is a great mood-elevator. By the time you recite your list to a loved one or friend, you should be feeling a whole lot better.
Host-GG: But there is a serious aspect to this as well. When you really think about it, isn’t it wonderful that the tornado didn’t strike? Isn’t it great that the house didn’t burn down? (It’s a real possibility. Three of my closest friends have had their homes or businesses burn to the ground.) Sometimes we need to look at what hasn’t befallen us to wake ourselves up to the joys of our ordinary life
Host-GG: Often we arrive at this place by hearing about the misfortunes of others, “Oh, thank God it wasn’t my child in that car crash”, “I’m so grateful that it’s not my husband who’s losing his job”, “Think of all those poor people who lost their homes.” Such reactions are human nature, I suppose, and yet it would be wonderful if we didn’t need the sorrows of other people to remind us of the blessings in our own lives.
Host-GG: Rather, if we consciously count our blessings on a daily basis, including those that are blessings by virtue of their not happening, instead of experiencing a sense of grateful relief when we hear about someone else’s misfortune perhaps we will be spurred into the action that comes from an awakened sense of compassion.
Host-GG: Chapter 4 – Part 1 of 3 – THE PRACTICES of GRATITUDE
Host-GG: Beginning to tune into even the minutest feelings of . . . gratitude softens us . . . If we begin to acknowledge these moments and cherish them . . then, no matter how fleeting and tiny this good heart may seem, it will gradually, at its own speed, expand. – Pema Chodron
Host-GG: Now we come to the next stage of our journey, which is where we begin to put our attitudes into action. Here we don’t just feel grateful, but we move to express our feelings of gratefulness in a variety of ways that enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
Host-GG: This is where we truly ripen as souls, for it is easy to pay lip service to the idea of gratitude and not take the final step of embodying it. But when we begin to practice gratitude, we create a powerful resonance between our thoughts and our actions, and our souls shine forth in all their brilliance.
Host-GG: Are there any questions or comments before proceed with the practices of gratitude?
maybellel: not yet GG
Host-GG: For one, I really like the way this lady author expresses her thoughts in words of such beauty and understanding.
ron1: nothing right now
Host-GG: EXERCISE DAILY - Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. – Frank Tyger
Host-GG: Even though I have spent the last twenty-five years as an editor and a writer, I am continually amazed that writing is a muscle that must be exercised. When I or my authors do it every day, it comes relatively easily, just like running a mile does for a marathoner.
Host-GG: When two much time has passed since I last sat down in front of the computer, my brain is creaky like an athlete coming back after an injury. Once, when I had not written for a month, I despaired that I could ever do it again.
Host-GG: The same is true for fostering any attitude. The more you do it, the easier it is to do. In fact, I’m convinced that this is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. A pessimist is someone who has exercised the muscles of negativity and lack till they are strongly habitual, while an optimist is a person who has developed thankfulness and a can-do attitude until these are second nature.
Host-GG: . We all have the choice of which muscles we want to strengthen. With practice, we can become joy-filled participants in the game of life, thankful to do our part and relishing in the sheer pleasure of play.
Host-GG: When I think of someone who really exercises her gratitude muscles, I think of Peris. She’s the kind of person who calls her friends out of the blue to thank them for being in her life. She comes from a large Croatian family, replete with all kinds of screwball uncles and zany aunts, the kind of family many of us would run from.
Host-GG: Listening to her stories, you begin to appreciate your own quirky family members in the same way she does. Recently I called her to ask her about gratitude. She didn’t get back to me right away, and when she finally did, she said my call had reminded her that she hadn’t been feeling very thankful lately and was grateful for the wake-up.
Host-GG: Like Peris, you have to practice or the muscle will wither. Developing the muscle of gratitude is just like exercising any other. At first it will seem weird, awkward, perhaps even hard to do. But if you keep at it every day, soon you won’t even have to think about it.
Host-GG: Whether you keep a gratitude journal or start a practice of thinking about all you are grateful for as you drive to or from work, creating some daily ritual really helps build the muscle. Only you know what will work best for you ~~ a file on your computer, a beautiful blank book, and audiotape in your car.
Host-GG: Whichever format you pick, make a commitment to list ten things every day that you are grateful for. Pretty soon it will be second nature. Here’s the beginning of my list. “I didn’t get in a car accident; my computer worked; my baby is healthy; it stopped raining; I had steak for dinner; my house is warm and dry; my sister called . . .”
Host-GG: CHOOSE GRATEFULNESS ‘IN SPITEOF’ – As you wander on through life, sister/brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole. – Sign in the Mayflower Coffee Shop, Chicago
Host-GG: Best selling author Lyanla Venzant, who penned such inspirational books as Acts of Faith and One Day My Soul Just Opened, has lived the prototypical rages-to-riches story. A former welfare recipient, she was about forty when her life began to turn around. Through it all, she claims, her sense of gratitude kept her going. “I’m grateful for everything,” she says, “from being homeless to sitting in a half-million-dollar house.”
Host-GG: This remarkable woman is pointing to something very important about gratitude ~~ that we can experience it even ‘in spite of’ something else; that our friend is lying in a hospital dying, that millions of people are starving as you red this book, that our own lives have trials and tribulations that might be sorely testing us
Guest1253 has joined RedPathHosted.
Host-GG: We can’t wait until everything is OK ~~ with us or with the rest of the world ~~ to feel thankful, or we will never experience it at all. “The world is too bent for unshadowed joy,” Lewis Smedes points out, and so we must catch and kiss our joy as it flies by, even in the midst of sorrow or suffering.
Host-GG: Greetings gues 1253
Guest1253: tHnk you Hoat
Host-GG: This is not to imply that we deny suffering, but just that we not allow our suffering to blind us to the beauty and joy that surrounds us no matter what else is going on.
maybellel: hi Guest1253
Guest1253: I'll try again--- Thank you Host
Host-GG: It’s a matter of where you choose to put your attention. Try the following experiments: Pick one morning and stop every hour on the hour and notice what went wrong in that time period. The traffic was terrible and you were late to work; the weather was gloomy and cold; your boss complained about the project you’ve worked so hard on.
Host-GG: My keyboard is a bit rusty tonight, too, guest 1253 so we have all had it at one time or another. Welcome to Attitudes of Gratitude.
Host-GG: That afternoon, stop every hour on the hour and notice what went right: An old friend called out of the blue; the sun came out; you did an excellent job on the sales letter.
Host-GG: Did you feel more alive in the morning or in the afternoon?
Host-GG: REVEL in the ORDINARY ~~ Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. ~~ Mary
Host-GG: It’s hard to appreciate the ordinary, except in contrast to something hard or challenging. I am always reminded of the truth of this when I’ve been sick. When I am well, I take my physical being for granted.
Guest1253: Wonder food for thought
Host-GG: I don’t particularly notice how I feel, I’m simply not aware of it. But when I’ve been sick and begin to feel better, I am filled with immense gratitude for how good it feels not to be sick ~~ not to have an aching head, a burning throat, leaden muscles and joints. I feel exactly as I normally do, but now I notice how great that is.
Host-GG: Please comment anytime or ask questions as we go along, if you wish everyone.
Host-GG: Other people experience this sensation from a close call in a car or plane, an almost-bankruptcy, anything that shakes us out of complacency and wakes us to the wonder of our ordinary existence.
Host-GG: The trick, of course, is to learn how to have that awareness without having to be sick, almost lose your house, or get hurt in a car crash. One way to do it is to pick an ordinary task, something you do every day, and decide that just for today, you will do it with awareness
Host-GG: . It can be anything ~~ washing dishes, chopping vegetables, making the bed. Instead of doing it while thinking about something else, such as the dinner that still needs to be made or how mad you are at the driver who cut you off, you actually pay attention to the task itself rather than being on automatic pilot.
Host-GG: Notice the high-pitched whirring of the vacuum cleaner, the hard-yet-soft feel of the ribbed hose in your hand, the sigh of the white dog hairs against the hardwood floor as they are sucked into the vacuum . . . . .